Front Row: Archive 2012

By BBC Radio 4

Society & Culture

What's Front Row: Archive 2012 about?

Magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music.

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Front Row: Archive 2012 episodes:

08.25.2021
The Rolling Stones in conversation with John Wilson
Following the announcement of the death of the musician Charlie Watts, tonight’s Front Row is an archive edition featuring John Wilson in conversation with the band he was a member of - The Rolling Stones. The programme was...
08.06.2014
Neil Young interviewed
With John Wilson. In a rare extended interview, the Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young discusses his latest disc, a selection of traditional songs, recorded with the uninhibited rock band Crazy Horse. The album includes a version of God Save...
12.31.2012
Julian Fellowes, Rumer and Maureen Lipman in the Front Row Quiz
Mark Lawson turns quizmaster to test the cultural knowledge of two teams in the Front Row Quiz of the Year. Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes and film-maker Asif Kapadia join team captain Natalie Haynes to compete against actress Maureen Lipman...
12.28.2012
British actors in America
With Mark Lawson. Damian Lewis, Hugh Laurie, Thandie Newton, Adrian Lester, Clive Owen and Ashley Jensen are among the actors who discuss the highs and lows of working as British performers in America. Many high profile American TV shows and...
12.27.2012
The creative backstage stars of Strictly, Downton and the Olympics
Kirsty Lang turns the spotlight on the backstage stars, some of the key individuals behind-the-scenes who play a key role in big events and major TV shows. The band from Strictly Come Dancing lurk at the back of the stage...
12.26.2012
Neil Young, Pete Townshend, Mick Jagger and more on their musical roots
John Wilson talks to musicians including Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Neil Young, Neil Diamond, Paul McCartney, Emeli Sandé, Jonny Greenwood and Pete Townshend about their first musical influences. Neil Young reveals why he recently recorded a version of God...
12.25.2012
Working with the family
With Mark Lawson. Jack Whitehall, Greg Davies, Niamh Cusack and Frances de la Tour are among the performers and artists who share memories and reflections on working with close members of their families. Christmas is the time when people...
12.24.2012
People of the Year 2012, part 2
Mark Lawson unwraps interviews with arts headline makers of 2012, in the second of two programmes. Writer E L James reflects on a year in which she became a global publishing phenomenon, with her best-selling trilogy which began with Fifty...
12.21.2012
People of the Year 2012
Mark Lawson unwraps new interviews with arts headline makers of the year, in the first of two special programmes. In the wake of the record-breaking success of the James Bond film Skyfall, Judi Dench reflects on her role as...
12.20.2012
The Impossible; Simon Amstell; Arts Funding
With Kirsty Lang. A new film The Impossible, starring Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts, focuses on the powerful tsunami which occurred in the Indian Ocean on Boxing Day 2004, and killed over 280,000 people. The film shows how events...
12.19.2012
Dustin Hoffman's Quartet reviewed; singer Katy Carr; comedy DVDs
With Kirsty Lang. Barry Norman reviews Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut, Quartet. The film is set in a home for retired opera singers and features Maggie Smith, Billy Connolly and Michael Gambon among the all-star cast. Katy Carr is a...
12.18.2012
Salman Rushdie, Victoria Wood, Christmas Jukebox Jury
With Mark Lawson Salman Rushdie has written his first ever screenplay, an adaptation of his own Booker Prize-winning novel Midnight's Children. He reflects on condensing the family saga which follows India from Colonialism to Partition, about filming in Sri Lanka,...
12.13.2012
Don McCullin; Martin Freeman; albums of the year
With John Wilson. Photographer Don McCullin was on Front Row earlier this year talking about an exhibition of some of his most famous photographs of conflict, from Vietnam to Iraq. He said then that - at the age of 75...
12.12.2012
William Boyd; Ravi Shankar remembered; video games of the year
With Kirsty Lang. Writer William Boyd discusses the television adaptation of his novel, Restless, which stars Michael Gambon, Michelle Dockery and Charlotte Rampling. Ravi Shankar, who has died at the age of 92, took the sitar to a...
12.11.2012
Paul Thomas Anderson on The Master; Jim Cartwright returns to the stage
With Mark Lawson. Director Paul Thomas Anderson reflects on his film The Master, which has already won numerous awards and is heavily tipped for Oscar success. In the week that Green Day release the third in a trilogy of...
12.07.2012
Paul Auster, Tom Robinson plays Beck
With John Wilson. Paul Auster is the best-selling author of The New York Trilogy and Moon Palace. His latest book, Winter Journal, takes him in a more reflective direction, examining his own life through a series of autobiographical fragments and...
12.06.2012
Ali Smith, Dave Brubeck, crime fiction
With Mark Lawson. The 1992 film The Bodyguard, starring Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston, was a huge box office hit. Now a stage musical version of the film has opened, with Heather Headley in the leading role. Music critic Rosie...
12.05.2012
All-female Julius Caesar; writer Mike Bartlett on The Town
With Mark Lawson. Mamma Mia and The Iron Lady director Phyllida Lloyd returns to the stage with a new all-female staging of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. It's set in a women's prison and contains a heavy-metal soundtrack. Harriet Walter takes the...
12.04.2012
Ben Folds; Elizabeth Price; Charles Dickens museum
With John Wilson. Elizabeth Price has won this year's Turner Prize for work including her video installation The Woolworths Choir of 1979. She discusses her inspirations and what winning the prestigious art prize might mean for her future plans. Ben...
12.03.2012
Seven Psychopaths, Beryl Bainbridge's art
Martin McDonagh won the 2008 Best Original Screenplay Oscar for In Bruges, starring Colin Farrell as an unlucky hit-man. In McDonagh's new film, Seven Psychopaths, Farrell is a struggling screenwriter dragged into the Los Angeles crime world when his quirky...
11.30.2012
The Mouse and His Child; Sightseers; Robert Greene; Cecilia Bartoli
With Kirsty Lang. Following the huge success of Matilda, the RSC has a new Christmas show for family audiences. The Mouse and His Child is based on a book by Russell Hoban, and features the adventures of two wind-up mice,...
11.29.2012
Roddy Doyle, Boris Godunov, The Staves, TV Drama The Fear
With Kirsty Lang, Booker Prize-winning novelist Roddy Doyle talks about his new novella, Two Pints. It's a year's dialogue between two men in a Dublin pub over their pints. Beginning with the landmark Royal visit to Ireland in May...
11.28.2012
Daniel Radcliffe in A Young Doctor's Notebook, Oliver Sacks, the Hunt
With Mark Lawson. Daniel Radcliffe and John Hamm star in A Young Doctor's Notebook, a new four-part TV comedy drama based on a collection of short stories by the celebrated Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov. Including graphic scenes, the series...
11.27.2012
Great Expectations; Bryan Ferry; Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong
With Mark Lawson. Bryan Ferry discusses The Jazz Age, a new album of instrumental versions of his greatest hits including Love Is The Drug, Virginia Plain and Avalon. Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong are the writing duo behind Channel 4...
11.26.2012
Trouble With the Curve; Sports Book of the Year; theatre awards
With Mark Lawson. Dame Judi Dench, Danny Boyle and Simon Russell Beale were just some of the winners at last night's Evening Standard Theatre Awards. Despite the glamour of the ceremony, the mood was reflective, with speeches addressing proposed funding...
11.23.2012
Brian Eno; Michael Hoffman; Spike Lee's Michael Jackson documentary
With Kirsty Lang Producer and musician Brian Eno discusses his new album Lux and his new app, which allows listeners to create their own music by selecting a variety of shapes and sounds. The story behind Michael Jackson's multimillion selling...
11.22.2012
22/11/2012
With Mark Lawson. When Matthew Bourne established the dance company Adventures in Motion Pictures in 1987, his pioneering fusion of contemporary dance, classical ballet, and theatre thrilled audiences worldwide, won prizes on both sides of the Atlantic, and divided...
11.21.2012
The Mousetrap at 60, Calixto Bieito on Carmen, New Russian Art
With Mark Lawson. Agatha Christie's classic murder mystery play The Mousetrap has now been continuously in performance in London for 60 years, and the first ever touring production of the show is currently on a 60 date tour. Front...
11.20.2012
Neil Diamond; Costa Shortlists
With John Wilson. Front Row reveals the shortlists for this year's Costa Book Awards. Gaby Wood of the Daily Telegraph and The Guardian's Alex Clark join John to discuss the nominations for the best first novel, novel, biography, poetry and...
11.19.2012
Derek Jacobi, End of Watch, Denise Mina
With Mark Lawson. Actor Derek Jacobi talks about his new TV series, Last Tango In Halifax, co-starring Anne Reid, Sarah Lancashire and Nicola Walker. He also reflects on moving away from traditional character roles, his desire to appear in a...
11.16.2012
Jimmy Page; natural history programmes over the years
With Kirsty Lang. Jimmy Page is the guitarist and founder member of Led Zeppelin. As Celebration Day, a film of their one-off 2007 reunion concert is released on DVD, Jimmy reflects on the performance, and why it's very unlikely the...
11.15.2012
Ben Elton, Danny Boyle on regional theatre cuts, computer art
With John Wilson Ben Elton began his career as a stand-up comedian, and went on to write TV comedies, musicals and novels including Popcorn. His latest novel is Two Brothers, inspired by his family history about adopted brothers who go...
11.14.2012
Billie Piper in The Effect; Twilight; author Phil Rickman
With Mark Lawson Billie Piper stars in The Effect, a new play by Lucy Prebble about drugs trials and mental health. It's Prebble's first major new work since her success with ENRON, her play about the American financial scandal. Senior...
11.13.2012
A Bigger Splash; The Hour returns; photography from the Middle East
With Mark Lawson. This week sees the return of The Hour, the drama set in a TV newsroom in the 1950s. The series picks up where the last one left off with ambitious producer Bel, played by Romola Garai,...
11.12.2012
Quentin Blake interviewed; Hitler's dark charisma discussed
With Mark Lawson. Quentin Blake is known for his illustrations of books by Roald Dahl and Michael Rosen, as well as his work as a writer and an exhibiting artist. In his 80th year and as he publishes a new...
11.09.2012
Jeff Wayne; The Orphan of Zhao
With Kirsty Lang. Jeff Wayne has made a new version of his 1978 hit album The War Of The Worlds, now starring Liam Neeson as the narrator, stepping into Richard Burton's shoes - with Ricky Wilson, Gary Barlow and Joss...
11.08.2012
Alan Bennett's play People; Michael Winterbottom's film Everyday
With Mark Lawson, Alan Bennett's new play People stars Frances de la Tour as a former model living in her family's crumbling stately home. The comedy, staged at the National Theatre, focuses on the future preservation of the house,...
11.06.2012
Director Michael Haneke; how to cry on stage; Full English
With Mark Lawson. In a rare interview, acclaimed director Michael Haneke talks about his most recent film, Amour, which won the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Festival. Haneke, whose previous films include Funny Games and The White Ribbon, discusses...
11.05.2012
Anna Friel in Uncle Vanya, The Sapphires, letters from the Mary Whitehouse archive
With Mark Lawson. Anna Friel returns to the stage in a new production of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, with a cast which also includes Ken Stott, Laura Carmichael and Sam West. Writer and performer Viv Groskop reviews. In 1964, a devoutly...
11.02.2012
The Shining, Lucy Kirkwood, Colm Toibin, Some Girls
With Kirsty Lang. As the longer, American version of The Shining is released in the UK for the first time, a new documentary about the film's obsessive fans is also in cinemas. Room 237 documents the various theories about...
11.01.2012
John Goodman, Orhan Pamuk, Andrew Rawnsley on Secret State
With Mark Lawson. Actor John Goodman discusses his latest role in Argo, Ben Affleck's film about a high-risk cinematic solution to the Iranian hostage crisis in the late '70s, which is based on a true story. Secret State is a...
10.31.2012
Rust and Bone, Aerosmith, paper art, and hotels on film
With Kirsty Lang. Rust and Bone, Jacques Audiard's follow-up to his award-winning prison drama A Prophet is an earthy romantic fable about the unlikely relationship between a bare-knuckle boxer and a trainer of killer whales. Marion Cotillard, the star of...
10.30.2012
The Master; Seduced by Art; Thomas Adès
With Mark Lawson. The film The Master is an impressionistic tale of an American war veteran who drifts into a cult led by a charismatic writer. Paul Thomas Anderson's follow-up to There Will Be Blood is partly inspired by...
10.29.2012
Tom Wolfe in conversation with Mark Lawson
Mark Lawson interviews the American writer Tom Wolfe, as he publishes a new novel, Back to Blood, which is set amidst the wealth, sex and crime of contemporary Miami. It's now 25 years since Wolfe published his first novel, the...
10.26.2012
Jez Butterworth, Wizards vs Aliens, soundscapes for journeys
With Mark Lawson Dramatist Jez Butterworth talks about the pressures of following on from the success of his play Jerusalem, which starred Mark Rylance. His new play The River stars Dominic West and is being staged in a very small...
10.25.2012
Mark Gatiss as Charles I; Posy Simmonds; 2013 City of Culture plans
With Mark Lawson. Mark Gatiss stars as King Charles I in Howard Brenton's play 55 Days, which focuses on the period culminating in the trial and execution of the monarch, as Oliver Cromwell takes control. Peter Kemp reviews. Cartoonist and...
10.24.2012
Thomas Keneally, Dan Stevens, 25 years of Michael Palin's TV travels
With Mark Lawson. Thomas Keneally, who won the Booker Prize for Schindler's Ark, discusses the inspiration for his new novel The Daughters of Mars. Set in 1915, the book focuses on two Australian sisters who join the war effort...
10.23.2012
Poet Sharon Olds, Squeeze on tour
With Kirsty Lang. When poet Sharon Olds' husband told her he was leaving her, she took out her notebook and started writing. Her new volume, Stag's Leap, charts the death of that marriage in a collection of poems now shortlisted...
10.22.2012
Skyfall director Sam Mendes, Kevin Costner's TV series
With Kirsty Lang. Sam Mendes, director of the new James Bond film Skyfall, discusses the vital ingredients needed to make a successful 007 adventure, and the art of updating Ian Fleming's classic character for a contemporary audience. Kevin Costner...
10.19.2012
Ginger & Rosa, Ralph Steadman on birds, the man who lights the Rolling Stones
With Kirsty Lang. Ginger & Rosa is a coming-of-age drama set during the Cuban missile crisis about two teenage girls who find that the bomb has brought them together. A heady mix of jazz, love, politics and shrink-to-fit jeans, it's...

What's Front Row: Archive 2012 about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Front Row: Archive 2012 episodes:

The Rolling Stones in conversation with John Wilson

Neil Young interviewed

Julian Fellowes, Rumer and Maureen Lipman in the Front Row Quiz

British actors in America

The creative backstage stars of Strictly, Downton and the Olympics

Neil Young, Pete Townshend, Mick Jagger and more on their musical roots

Working with the family

People of the Year 2012, part 2

People of the Year 2012

The Impossible; Simon Amstell; Arts Funding

Dustin Hoffman's Quartet reviewed; singer Katy Carr; comedy DVDs

Salman Rushdie, Victoria Wood, Christmas Jukebox Jury

Don McCullin; Martin Freeman; albums of the year

William Boyd; Ravi Shankar remembered; video games of the year

Paul Thomas Anderson on The Master; Jim Cartwright returns to the stage

Paul Auster, Tom Robinson plays Beck

Ali Smith, Dave Brubeck, crime fiction

All-female Julius Caesar; writer Mike Bartlett on The Town

Ben Folds; Elizabeth Price; Charles Dickens museum

Seven Psychopaths, Beryl Bainbridge's art

The Mouse and His Child; Sightseers; Robert Greene; Cecilia Bartoli

Roddy Doyle, Boris Godunov, The Staves, TV Drama The Fear

Daniel Radcliffe in A Young Doctor's Notebook, Oliver Sacks, the Hunt

Great Expectations; Bryan Ferry; Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong

Trouble With the Curve; Sports Book of the Year; theatre awards

Brian Eno; Michael Hoffman; Spike Lee's Michael Jackson documentary

22/11/2012

The Mousetrap at 60, Calixto Bieito on Carmen, New Russian Art

Neil Diamond; Costa Shortlists

Derek Jacobi, End of Watch, Denise Mina

Jimmy Page; natural history programmes over the years

Ben Elton, Danny Boyle on regional theatre cuts, computer art

Billie Piper in The Effect; Twilight; author Phil Rickman

A Bigger Splash; The Hour returns; photography from the Middle East

Quentin Blake interviewed; Hitler's dark charisma discussed

Jeff Wayne; The Orphan of Zhao

Alan Bennett's play People; Michael Winterbottom's film Everyday

Director Michael Haneke; how to cry on stage; Full English

Anna Friel in Uncle Vanya, The Sapphires, letters from the Mary Whitehouse archive

The Shining, Lucy Kirkwood, Colm Toibin, Some Girls

John Goodman, Orhan Pamuk, Andrew Rawnsley on Secret State

Rust and Bone, Aerosmith, paper art, and hotels on film

The Master; Seduced by Art; Thomas Adès

Tom Wolfe in conversation with Mark Lawson

Jez Butterworth, Wizards vs Aliens, soundscapes for journeys

Mark Gatiss as Charles I; Posy Simmonds; 2013 City of Culture plans

Thomas Keneally, Dan Stevens, 25 years of Michael Palin's TV travels

Poet Sharon Olds, Squeeze on tour

Skyfall director Sam Mendes, Kevin Costner's TV series

Ginger & Rosa, Ralph Steadman on birds, the man who lights the Rolling Stones

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